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Trump's legal team just used a line of defense that they're likely to make if he is criminally charged

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Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump.

Joe Maiorana/AP Photo

  • Donald Trump's lawyers are threatening to sue CNN in a 282-page document.
  • His lawyers say Trump "subjectively believes" he lost the 2020 election due to voter fraud. 
  • This could lay out his possible legal strategy as more investigation into Trump ramps up.

Former President Donald Trump's legal team threatened to sue the cable network CNN for defamation, and the letter signals his attorneys are using a strategy likely to be a central defense should he ever face criminal charges related to his role in attempts to cling to power despite losing the 2020 election.

In the 282-page document, his lawyers said that the television network repeatedly said that Trump was "lying" and "fed a narrative that denounced President Trump's legitimacy and competency" following the presidential election. 

The lawyers said CNN's portrayal of Trump is inaccurate because Trump "subjectively believes" there was election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.  

The lawyer's July 21 email to the television network offers a glimpse of how Trump's legal defense team may respond should the ex-president be criminally charged. There are several ongoing investigations into him and his business practices. The Justice Department and the Atlanta area District Attorney Fani Willis are examining allegations that Trump and his closest allies tried to overturn the 2020 election. 

Insider has previously reported that Trump could have violated five federal and three Georgia state laws following the election, to include wire fraud, witness tampering, racketeering, and election interference.

One of the likely defense strategies Trump's lawyers could employ is to argue that he genuinely believed that there was election fraud and did not have the intent to commit a criminal act.

For instance, in the document, the lawyers go into more detail about how Trump did not lie about election fraud by writing the full definition of that word.

"Webster's Dictionary defines a 'lie' as an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive," they wrote. "The definition, then, is not limited to simply being wrong about an assertion; it instead requires the speaker to know he or she is speaking falsely and to specifically harbor an intent to mislead. "

The Trump lawyers also argued that numerous claims after the election suggested that there were problems with vote counting — assertions that would prove baseless and failed in courts when they were presented at all.

"Substantial numbers of Americans shared President Trump's genuinely-held view that voter fraud affected the results of the 2020 election," the lawyers wrote.

Prosecutors would have a counter, however. Top Justice Department officials and state elections officials have testified to the House select committee that they told Trump directly that election fraud claims were baseless or "bullshit" — assessments that would seek to undercut whether Trump's belief in widespread fraud was reasonable.

Legal experts previously told Insider the prosecutors could also try to paint the picture that Trump's actions were part of a bigger strategy to pressure Republican officials across the country to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump's legal team could also try to blame other people in Trump's inner circle for his actions around the 2020 elections, a blame-the-lawyer strategy that can be effective. 

Trump's team did not respond to Insider's request for comment Thursday.

Read the original article on Business Insider


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